1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a protective-layer thermal transferring film and a printed article having an image on which the protective layer of the film is transferred.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, images such as tone images and mono-tone images including characters and symbols have been formed on a substrate by using a thermal transfer system, such as a heat-sensitive sublimation transfer system.
In the heat-sensitive sublimation transfer system, a thermal transfer film, which is formed by placing a dye layer prepared by melting or dispersing a sublimable dye serving as a colorant in a binder resin on a substrate, is used, and with this thermal transfer film being superposed on an image receiving film, energy in accordance with image information is applied to a heating device such as a thermal head so that the sublimable dye contained in the dye layer on the thermal transfer film is transferred onto the image-receiving film; thus, an image is formed thereon.
This heat-sensitive sublimation transfer system makes it possible to control the amount of dye transfer on a dot basis in response to the quantity of energy to be applied to the thermal transfer film; therefore, this system has the advantages of forming a superior tone image and of easily forming characters, symbols and the like.
With respect to the image formed by the heat-sensitive sublimation transfer system, since the transferred dye is present on the surface of the image-receiving member, a protective layer is formed on the image from the viewpoints of protecting the image and of imparting light resistance, abrasion resistance and the like to the image (for example, see Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2).
Printed articles, each having the protective layer formed thereon, are continuously discharged from a printer, and stacked on a printed-article receiving tray, and the printed articles, discharged on the tray, are not accurately stacked one by one on the printed article discharged immediately before, and randomly stacked to a certain extent. For this reason, after a desired number of sheets have been printed, the pile of the printed articles is taken out of the tray, and normally, these need to be sorted properly.
In this case, however, a problem tends to arise in which the printed articles, discharged from a printer, are mutually adhered to each other, with the result that the continuously printed articles are not properly aligned, that is, the printed articles are not properly sorted (poor sorting property).    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-80844    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-71626